Oral history, mapping and photography in the Bangladesh Sundarbans

Abdul Mobin Ibna Hafiz, Chamithri Greru and Siobhan Warrington

Colleagues from Hub partners BUET (Bangladesh) and Northumbria and Newcastle Universities (UK) have worked together to use oral history and a range of visual methods to explore and document older and younger women’s and men’s experiences of environmental change in the Bangladesh Sundarbans. This participatory intergenerational research combines the expertise and interests of two sub-groups in WP1: Oral history & Ageing; and Youth & Participatory Mapping. In this blog we will provide an overview of the research process and reflect on the use of the methods, which were new to many of the researchers involved.

The research team during their second visit to Horinkhola and Ghatakhali. From left to right: Rubiya Sultana, Shampa Sarkar, Mondira Bardhan, Md. Rustom Ali Sheikh, Sarmin Aktar, Abdul Mobin Ibna Hafiz, Abu Syed, Abdul Munim. (Credit: Unknown)

We’ve been working together since November 2021 when we brought together a team of Bangladeshi researchers coordinated by Dr Mahmuda Mutahara, director of the NGO Bridge of Community Development Foundation (BCDF) and Sara Nowreen (BUET). These researchers come from various disciplinary backgrounds including environmental sciences and engineering, anthropology, and business management and include early career researchers (BUET), MA graduates (Khulna University), NGO workers (BCDF) and young women and men from the communities where the research has taken place. They are: Sarmin Aktar, Mondhira Bardhan, Shampa Sarkar, Abdul Mobin Ibna Hafiz, Abdul Munim, Alif Al Arefin Prodhan, Souvik Sarker, Md. Rustam Ali Sheikh, Arup Talukdar, Rubiya Sultana, Sumaya Sultana, Kamrul Islam and Abu Syed.

The researchers worked with women and men living in two villages – Horinkhola and Ghatakhali - in Koyra Union, Khulna District, south-west Bangladesh. The two villages are positioned close to the Sundarbans Reserve Forest - an area of mangrove forest, waterways and islands that spans the GBM delta of India and Bangladesh. In these two villages, many people’s homes and homelands have been lost and damaged; people live with multiple threats to their homelands, in particular river-bank erosion, increasing salinity of soil and water, and an increase in the frequency and intensity of cyclones. 

The aim of this research was to listen to and learn from a wide group of younger and older people to better understand:

• how people have experienced and responded to environmental change over time;

• the ways individuals are connected to their environment beyond livelihoods (heritage, leisure, well-being etc); and

• people’s hopes, concerns, and suggestions for the future. 

Since November 2021 both the Bangladesh and the UK team have come together for 23 remote learning sessions (using Zoom and Miro platforms). The first few sessions were used to introduce the new research methods, develop research topics, and consider issues of voice, power, and researcher responsibilities. The sessions following each research visit to the communities were used to share reflections on the experience of using the methods and what researchers have learnt in relation to the research aims and questions. The team also discussed transcription, translation, and data management. The first research visit to the communities was in December 2021, the second in January 2021, and the third in May 2022.  

Oral History Interviews

Researcher Abdul Munim recording an oral history interview with a fisherman, Horinkhola village in May 2022. (Credit: Abdul Mobin Ibna Hafiz)

The Bangladeshi team recorded a total of 43 in-depth oral history interviews, lasting between one and one and half hours. There are some people we interviewed who are so articulate and expressive and we learnt a lot from sitting with them for over an hour, recording their memories, experiences, and knowledge. Listening to first-hand accounts supports a clearer understanding of the multiple impacts of environmental change. The focus of the interview is the individual’s experiences, as opposed to the researcher’s set questions. We asked follow-up questions and tried to explore the issues that are of most interest to, or of most relevance for, the narrators. The process of transcription, although time-consuming, is a time to re-engage with the narrator’s accounts. Listening back to interviews helped researchers to identify new questions for the research and supported research skills.

Walking, photography and mapping

We carried out mapping sessions (including transect walks, photography, and drawing of maps) with separate groups of younger women and younger men, and older women and older men. We worked with younger participants first who were asked to produce a map of their village as it looks in the present day, and then with groups of older participants to produce a map of their village some 30-40 years ago.

Female researchers facilitating a mapping session with younger women in Horinkhola village. (Credit: Rubiya Sultana)

Young woman creating a map of Horinkhola village today. (Credit: Sarmin Aktar)

The participants took some time to comprehend and feel comfortable with these research activities, particularly the production of the maps. For some, it was bit difficult to hold pens and pencils and draw as they are not used to doing this, others thought that we have asked them to draw very ‘technical’ maps. But after some time, both the young and older participants got into the flow of the activity and generally assigned one or two people in their groups to draw and map their respective villages. Once engaged, the activity generated a lot of discussion – which was audio-recorded. People felt surprised and proud to see they had produced such clear visual representations of their area.

From the mapping session done in Horinkhola village, we got to realise some remarkable things, like, how much the village has reduced in area over the course of time; how much the cultivable land area has reduced; reduction in the number of trees over the village; and the emergence of new fish and shrimp ponds in the area over the years. These changes were described by the participants during the oral history interview session, but the maps produced by the local people provide a strong visual for researchers to appreciate how much a place can change, and how deeply it can affect people’s lives.

Photo elicitation

We used the 3rd visit to the communities to ‘return the data’ to research participants, to follow-up on, and provide further detail and clarification, on the themes emerging from 1st and 2nd visit. It was also a chance to discuss their preferences and ideas for communicating the research findings to local and national audiences. We ran a series of focus group discussions with different groups of younger and older women and men in each village. These sessions started with reflecting on the previously produced maps and then involved the use of photographs taken on previous visits as prompts for a focused discussion on a series of themes.

Looking ahead August-December 2022

We have already presented the research, in terms of methods, and some initial findings, at several international events and conferences, and are working together on several academic outputs. We will come together for several remote co-analysis sessions over the next few months to support this work. We are also working on effective data management and preparing the material for the Living Deltas Hub data repository.  We have multiple data-types (images, audio, text) and in multiple languages (Bangla and English, plus local dialect).

We will also be working with Bangaldeshi communications specialists and creatives to ensure the materials are communicated with purpose and meaning to the research participants, their wider communities, and to relevant authorities and decisionmakers.  

Note this research builds on similar work carried out in the Mekong Delta in 2021, whch can be accessed here.